


Milestones

by china_shop



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Dealing with Betrayal, F/F, First Kiss, Future Fic, Immortality, Loss of Immortality, Podfic Available, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: Nile has nothing but time. Nothing but time and Andy and Nicky and Joe.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman
Comments: 24
Kudos: 202





	Milestones

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Sixthlight for beta! <3

1.

After the Merrick mess, it takes Nile two months of sarcastic remarks and patient lobbying to convince Andy to get body armour. “It’s not like the old days,” she says, refusing to think about how old the old days actually are, for Andy. “Armour’s lighter, tougher. They make it for women now, too.”

Andy shakes her head and points at a small sign up ahead on the right. “That’s the place.”

Nile pulls into the driveway. It’s a small B&B, cute and weirdly normal compared to the abandoned churches and honest-to-god caves they usually retreat to, but apparently Joe knows the proprietors, a gay couple, and guarantees they’ll be discreet. There’s a low-slung electric blue sports car in the garage. Joe and Nicky must be here already. 

Nile kills the jeep’s engine and just sits there. She knows Andy doesn’t want to die, not yet. “For a price, they’ll custom-make it to your measurements. You’ll barely know it’s there.”

“If my time is up—” starts Andy, that rock-hard note in her voice, like all the softness eroded away centuries ago.

“Bullshit.” Nile grabs her arm, aware of her wounds. They’re healing, but slowly. She wonders if Andy will age, whether her face will line and her hair will go grey. Or whether she’ll die before that can happen—a bullet, a stab wound, an infection. It feels absurdly as though time is running out, when really Nile has nothing _but_ time. Nothing but time and Andy and Nicky and Joe. “Would you just give it a try?” 

Andy stares at her, lips parted, and Nile gets a jolt low in her belly. Doesn’t try to hide it. If nagging won’t work, she’s not too proud to resort to emotional blackmail. 

“Please.”

A flicker of something crosses Andy’s face, and then she goes blank again, the way she always does when the subject of her new vulnerability comes up. She opens the jeep door and gets out, slides sunglasses onto her nose. But when she looks at Nile, there’s a wry tilt to her mouth. “I’ll try it.”

Nile is ninety percent sure she’s referring to the body armour.

2.

It’s still another year and change before they kiss. Not that Nile’s been trying to hide her interest. She realised after Booker that there’s no place for secrets or mind games in their tight little unit.

Of course, Andy doesn’t see it that way. Andy the walking sphinx, all mystery and ancient history. But she’s also flesh and blood, determination and beauty, and Nile can pinpoint her location without looking, day or night, wherever they are and whatever they’re doing. She doesn’t know how much that’s part of the immortal package, and how much it’s physical awareness. It feels like desire.

Anyway, it’s a busy year. The team’s learning to work with Copley. Learning to live without Booker. There’s always another crisis, another job. Always someone to save.

But one night, in an abandoned farmhouse in Belgium, with a full moon shining through the hole in the roof and the floor littered with sweet-smelling pine needles, Andy stops evading. It’s a subtle shift, but Nile’s paying attention. 

Nile steps close, pauses, takes another step till they’re a breath apart. Andy looks almost the same as she did the day they met, when they fought like enemies on the drug smuggler’s plane. Just a few more creases around her eyes, a slight softness to her jaw. 

“Nile.” She sounds uncertain for once. After the endless, unfathomable dangers she’s walked into without hesitating—wars and firefights and hostage situations—this is what makes her hesitate. 

“Shh.” Nile pushes her gently out of the moonlight, into the dark, and kisses her there. She tastes of honey and spice. 

3.

Eventually Nile comes to understand why Booker sold them out the way he did. She always thought he could have just talked to the others, or turned himself in to Big Pharma unilaterally. _Why betray them?_ But now, being with them, being one of them, she gets it.

Andy is implacable. You can’t reason with her. You can try to chip away, but unless your conviction matches her granite, you’ll lose heart before you gain the slightest ground. Even now they’re lovers, Nile knows that. At night Nile melts into her embrace, makes her laugh and brings a warm light to her eyes, teases her and licks her and touches her till she swears and comes. But they’re not like Joe and Nicky, bound together with the same past, equal. Once Andy’s mind is made up, there’s no reasoning with her. 

“Dammit!” Nile shouts one time, frustrated, after Andy’s shaken her head and gone outside, cool and contained. 

Nicky comes through from the next room and pulls Nile into a bear hug. “Give her time,” he says. “She’s still getting over what happened with Book.”

“Time,” scoffs Nile. It’s been nearly two decades… which in Andy’s terms is nothing. Time. Okay. Nile sighs.

And as for walking away, it’s unthinkable. They’re an indivisible unit, the four of them. With the future stretching out endlessly, with all the cruelty and downright callousness in the world, Nile knows she’d go crazy on her own. To start with, it had been the others’ age-weariness that kept her there; they obviously needed her, especially with the gaping space that Booker had left behind. That space is slowly closing up, but now the need cuts both ways.

4.

Turning fifty shouldn’t be a big deal. She doesn’t _look_ fifty, and none of the others celebrate their birthdays. 

“It gets repetitive after the first couple of hundred years,” Joe explains with a smirk, when she asks.

Andy doesn’t even track her age. But Nile remembers her mom’s fiftieth birthday party, all their family, friends and neighbours crowded into the living room, singing, everyone cheering. The cake covered in little candles. Her mom with happy tears in her eyes.

She’ll never have that. “You know, I used to think I’d have a family of my own.”

The fire crackles in its grate. 

Andy cracks open the single malt and pours four generous glassfuls, distributes them and raises hers in a toast. “To your birthday. To all of us, making the best of what we have. I know this isn’t what you dreamed of before, when you were young. But I want you to know your loss is our gain. My gain.”

Nile looks around at them: at Joe and Nicky, leaning on each other; at Andy, smiling with the flames reflected in her eyes. There are a few grey strands in her hair now, but she’s still alive. Still at Nile’s side. Listening.

They’re all different. They all come from different places and beliefs. They’ve all been hurt.

Family is too small a word. “I always used to think I’d have a family,” she repeats, wry this time, grateful for each one of them. “I just never thought it would look like you.”

END

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Milestones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511913) by [greedy_dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer)




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